[Nova Wars] Chapter 179

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You think that only the creation engines and the nanoforges are why Terra’s logistics system is so dominant?

Then why do the Lanaktallan all send their officers to the Mechakrautland Logistics Academy? – Doornut, Tukna’rn Historian, 25 Post Terran Emergence

General Talkik<klik>nak stared at Operation Banana Goblin in the holotank.

What was leaving TerraSol was entire military divisions backed up by Space Force task forces.

“It could have been done by running a clone worlds consortiums systems ship with a creation engine and just doubled each time they started,” Tik-Tak said, reaching out with the knife to tap on the icons. “A good plan, but too light, too easy to fail by hitting a single snag. That was the plan all of this was wrapped around.”

General Talkik<klik>nak nodded slowly.

He expected to see that only creation engines and nanoforges were going to be in place.

No. Those were just part of the initial step of Operation Banana Goblin. The creation engines and nanoforges were to be used to build living areas and clone banks, extraction facilities, then refining facilities, then manufacturing facilities, then shipping.

Each of the dots become a massive extraction, refining, manufacturing, shipping loops.

No single point of failure either.

Sensitive equipment manufacturing away from the new ‘allies’ and the species that were thrust into the whirlwind due to the Mar-gite or the Ornislarp Noocracy. Things like heavy weaponry, certain engines, and certain hulls, as well as warsteel production, were placed away from those species and guarded by Space Force.

“Phase three is to bring in specialists from Senior and Validated Confederacy Members so they run the local nodes,” Tik-Tak said. He was cutting a block of cheese with his knife.

“Where is everything for phase two coming from?” General Talkik<klik>nak asked.

“The cloning banks and the people we have in cold storage will be doing a lot of work at first, which is always nervous. We have quite a few non-orbital forward operating bases in cold storage around Neptune,” Tik-Tak said. He began cutting the meat to the perfect size to stab with a bladearm tip.

It was making General Talkik<klik>nak slightly hungry.

Still continuing Tik-Tak used the knife to whip the sauce, pausing to take a drink of his ale.

“Wars are won or lost upon logistics, General. Humanity has known this since gunpowder was confined to crude cannons and the calvary fought with swords. Actually, thousands of years prior to that,” Tik-Tak said. He tasted the tip of the knife and nodded. “The Creation Engines and Nanoforges are part of the system, but we are going to build up the logistics system around them, not replace them.”

General Talkik<klik>nak nodded along.

Tik-Tak turned and tapped the tray so that it hovered and moved it between the human and the Treana’ad.

“Cheese from Smokey Cone, meat from the Great Grass Expansave in the Hamburger Kingdom, hunted by dinosaur riders with spears,” he said. He tapped the tray. “Sauce is my mom’s secret recipe.”

General Talkik<klik>nak nodded politely, spearing a slice of cheese, then meat, and dipping them with a slight feeling of resignation. Human sauces all tasted terrible to the Treana’ad taste buds.

He was startled how amazing the whole thing tasted. The sauce was absolutely perfect for the Treana’ad palate and he closed his eyes and sighed.

“When my mother was younger mixing sauces was all the rage with the just molted females. She prided herself with her sauces,” the portly general said, stabbing cheese, meat, cheese again and then dipping it in the sauce. He bit it and closed his eyes. “It helps me focus when things get stressful.”

General Talkik<klik>nak had to admit, the sharp tang, the underlying sweetness, combined with the cheese’s familiar flavor and the meat’s exotic taste and spice all combined to make him feel a little more focused.

“If you have the Creation Engines and Nanoforges, why bother with all of the rest?” General Talkik<klik>nak asked.

“Humanity tries to avoid single failure points while seeking out single failure points in their enemies,” Tik-Tak said. “The Ornislarp rely too much on their food species. They don’t have fallback foods any more. We take away their food species, by protecting them or nova sparking them, we take away their food. No food, the Ornislarp revert to cannibalism,” Tik-Tak shrugged. “Sure, food is a critical infrastructure point, but Ornislarp are uniquely positioned because they eat sentient beings you can teach to fire a power rifle and throw a grenade, not to mention the Ornislarp themselves are outnumbered by hundreds to one.”

General Talkik<klik>nak nodded slowly, spearing another set of treats.

They were really good in combination. The double-cheese was the best, he decided.

The lecture went on about how the spread was going to work. How the assets were already being staged.

The snack made it easier to control the flow of the conversation. If he needed a few moments to gather his thoughts or process information, a quick bladearm tip spearing of meat and cheese and slow sauce dipping would provide it.

By the end, the amount of ships and manpower the Solarian Iron Dominion was putting forth was no longer something horrifying and outrageous but a perfectly natural outcome of fifty years of preparing to exit The Bag and fight a war that was being lost or already lost against the Lanaktallan.

An item that General Talkik<klik>nak knew suddenly fit in.

There were several huge ships that were found over the last several thousand years that didn’t make sense. Just drifting out between the stars. Massive ships that had slips that could handle colossus class hulls in their repair slips. All of them just cold and silent. The warsteel resisted getting into them.

When General Talkik<klik>nak returned to his office he brought up the data.

All of them had been found in the “Long Dark” toward the old Council territory. Several recently (in the past ten thousand years) discovered species had found one at one time or another.

Two reports of teams gaining entry. One was a military investigation team. The other was a junker crew. Both reported the entire thing was filled with untold riches to the junker team and valuable hardware to the military team. The junker crew had it confiscated when they started selling hyperdrive cores and engines capable of travel in the upper bandwidths to anyone who wanted them.

In both cases, there were ‘warbound’ that were sent to Smokey Cone or Telkan. Two of the warbound were sent to Hamaroosa Prime.

General Talkik<klik>nak stared at where each of them were found just drifting. It was assumed they were derelicts that weren’t even supposed to be there.

A quick set of dots showed him.

It was a line toward Lanaktallan Space.

He nodded. The humans had been building one just like it already.

He had admire that Tik-Tak had just picked up right where the previous one had left off and redeployed it.

After going over the data he went to the O-Club and ordered a nice dinner, complete with a traditional sauce.

The sauce had a faint taste of scorched metal and ruined the meal.

0-0-0-0-0

“We’re at 52% lock and rising!” Technician Manfred Del’Mache called out. “TerraSol is locked! System has accepted the TerraSol rename to Solarian Iron Dominion.”

Angela didn’t look, instead concentrating on the data she was staring at on the smart window.

“Ess-Eye-Dee upload complete! Recent history and prime dimension reality status has been uploaded and accepted by the system!” Technician Reginald McDoorsey stated. “Recent history and status template born whole stitching is at seventy percent complete and rising. System rejection is at less than best case estimates.”

“Reciprocal data transfers are locked,” Ms. Bisa, Angela’s supervisor, said softly from where she was standing next to Angela. “This is different.”

“Military queue is firing again! Six digits and counting!” Analyst Angela Osorio called out. “Whoever it is, they’re bypassing the interlocks and the accountability system. They’re rapid-loading military sentience recordings to undisclosed ports and outbound systems.”

Senior Analyst Angela Angus Kusumoto just nodded, watching as another <REDACTED> node suddenly came online, connected, synched up, downloaded a few thousand SUDS templates, then gave an exit handshake, registered the SUDS template serial numbers, and disconnected.

She’d seen this a few times, but only for individuals.

“What are we at?” she asked.